It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Other than the cold weather, this is the most wonderful time of the year. I love Christmas and the Christmas season.

We had our family portraits taken on November 21st. They turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself.



We ordered our Christmas cards. Actually, I am a sucker for pictures, so I ordered three different Christmas cards. One is a postcard (to save on postage costs), which will be sent to a majority of our list. Two are actual Christmas photo cards to be sent to family. They all have the above two pictures in them. I'm so excited to get them out in the mail!

On Monday the 29th, I went to Target after work and got all the trimmings for our Christmas tree - the first Christmas tree in our new house. I decided the tree would have purple and silver decorations. We put the tree up that night, but didn't get all the lights, ornaments, and garland on until the 2nd.


On the 2nd I also put up our nativity scene and the stockings on the fireplace.



K-C had a Holiday Family Night on the evening of the 2nd. We took Alan to meet some of my co-workers and have his first encounter with Santa. I think it turned out pretty well.

Alan with Santa at the K-C Family night

I'm looking forward to having my family back over for Christmas at my house on December 27th. Bring on the carols and long mall lines!

Weights and Measures

It has definitely been a struggle to get back to my old size and shape. I don't know if it will ever happen. I'm going to give myself nine months, since it took nine months to get to the place I was. After that, I will no longer be able to blame my size and shape on the baby.

Before I got pregnant here were my measurements:
Waist - 24.5"
Bust - 30.5"
Hips - 36"
Thighs - 36"
Weight 115

This was on October 29, 2009 - a month before getting pregnant.

Now my measurements are:
Waist - 27.5" (I have three inches to lose)
Bust - 33.5 (I think I'll take that, although I'm sure I'll lose it when finished breastfeeding)
Hips - 35.5" (Wha??? My hips are smaller??)
Thighs - 35.5" (Again, Huh?)
Weight 122.6 (So 7.6 lbs to lose still)

I'm pretty happy with the fact that my hips and thighs are smaller, but I have got to get my waist and weight back in order.

I didn't measure my belly before getting pregnant, so I don't know what it was initially, but it is now 30.5". I think that is a huge part of my problem with trying to get into my old clothes. My belly sticks out over top of them like a muffin top. *sigh*

I have five more months to go to get back to my original shape. Wish me luck!

Thanksgiving

I blogged most of this month about things I was thankful for. Thanksgiving weekend really brought a lot of those things together. It has been an eventful last couple of days.

Family
I hosted Thanksgiving for my family this year. We had 13 adults and 4 children over at my house. On Wednesday night, we had 11 overnight guests. The house was packed, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

My mother and stepmother met for the first time this weekend. It seemed to go very well. They were civil to each other, even friendly.

Alan with cousin Anastasia over Thanksgiving holiday

My first DNF
Thanksgiving morning, I attempted to run my first half marathon since Alan was born. It was a big FAIL. I had my first DNF, which in the running world means "did not finish." I was doing well for the first three miles. Then, sometime between mile three and four, my legs started feeling weird. It was as if I couldn't control them. I've never felt that way before. It felt like I was running like one of those people who have to walk with the crutches attached to their arms. I don't think I looked that way, but that's how it felt. I stopped to stretch and started again. I was fine for a little while, but then it started happening again. After the fourth time of this happening, I was approaching Colony Square and knew that it would be the easiest place for Rob to pick me up. So I dropped out of the race. According to my Garmin, I had run 5.40 miles when I dropped out - not even halfway! It was very disappointing to say the least.

I know I can run at least 9 miles, or at least I could two weeks ago. So why did I all of a sudden have this weird thing happen to me? I think it may be a hip injury that affected my legs, so I am going to schedule an appointment with my sports massage therapist and see if he can work it out. If that doesn't work, I might schedule an appointment with a neurologist or something to see if it's a nerve issue.

Alan's first cold
Alan started coughing this weekend. He has been congested sounding in the past, but it has escalated to a much more raspy and consistent cough. Sometimes he will cough three or so times and then draw a huge breath, almost sounding like he can't breathe very well. We've put a humidifier in his room, but it hasn't seemed to help. I will be calling the doctor for an appointment today.

Decreasing milk supply
My milk supply has been decreasing recently. It is actually quite sudden how much it has gone down. It went down when I went back to work, but I never had a problem getting enough to send with Alan to daycare. Normally the pattern is that I have a decent supply toward the beginning of the week. It gradually decreases throughout the week. Then it will go up again on the weekend when I am around Alan more.

Two weekends ago, I had a huge supply. An overabundance. In fact, it was enough that I took a night off from night pumping and was still okay. Then last weekend, things started changing. Over the weekend, I wasn't getting as much as I had before. My supply should have gone up a lot over Thanksgiving weekend, because I was around Alan and nursing him most of the weekend. I started getting the bottles ready for today, and I only had enough for two and a half bottles.

Not only is my supply dwindling, but he's eating a lot more. We decided to try a formula bottle to see how he would take it. He ate 6oz of an 8oz bottle. Then he proceeded to projectile vomit an ounce out, and then spit up another couple of ounces in his crib while sleeping. Hmm...formula didn't go over too well.

So what am I going to do? He doesn't like the formula, and I'm not making enough to satisfy him. I even got a prescription for some medicine that is supposed to increase my supply. It hasn't seemed to help so far, but we will see now that I'm back at work and pumping more rather than nursing. Talk about frustrating!

Alan's dedication
On Sunday, we went to Dunwoody Baptist Church for Alan's dedication. Norcross First UMC, where we are members, refused to do a baby dedication instead of a baptism. I firmly believe that you shouldn't get baptized until you believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and savior. Since Alan is too young to do that, I wanted to have him dedicated to the Lord and dedicate us to raising him in a Christian family environment, to teach him the way of the Lord in hopes that he will someday accept Jesus for himself. I used to go to DBC before getting married, and they were willing to do our dedication even though we aren't members.

Us dedicating ourselves to raising Alan in a Christian home

We were supposed to have 18 people come to the dedication and lunch at our house afterwards. We ended up having only 10. Everyone cancelled at the last minute. So now I have a TON of leftovers. I suppose we will be eating spaghetti for a long time.

Family present at the dedication

Final thoughts
It was an exciting, event-packed weekend. I didn't get much sleep, which I would have liked to get when having an extra couple days off work. But I did have a lot of fun. I enjoyed being the hostess for the two big events. Now it's time to get back to the real world and a normal, routine life.

Go Pirates! Arrrggghhhh!

Today I am thankful for my education.



I started college at Mars Hill College, a small baptist college near Asheville, NC, on a full-tuition scholarship. The college was too small for my taste, so I decided to look at other options.

I had been living in North Carolina over the summer after my freshman year, and decided to stay there and gain residency. During the process of gaining residency, I went to Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College for my sophomore year.

Once I gained residency, I applied to four different schools: Western Carolina University, Appalachian State, University of North Carolina at Asheville, and East Carolina University. I was accepted into all four, but decided to travel away from the western North Carolina area and enrolled at East Carolina University.

ECU has a five year program where you can get a Bachelors and Masters degree in Accounting together. Although some of my credits didn't transfer, and I had to take classes over the summer, I still managed to graduate in five total college years with my Master's degree.

My education prepared me for taking the CPA exam. Because of the way ECU set up their program and because of my great professors, I was able to pass the exam in one sitting.

My education has also allowed me to gain great experience with big companies. I have worked for two of the Big Four accounting firms. I have had my pick of jobs anytime I wanted a change.

While often times I wish I had gone to a school with bigger sports programs and that were closer to where I currently live, I am thankful that I had the opportunity to get a good education and that I chose a field that has a lot of possible career choices.

To see what others are thankful for today, visit:

The Holiday Season Is Upon Us

In the past month, I have blogged about some of my favorite things: Pictures and Holidays. With Christmas coming up and a new baby in the family, Rob and I are planning on sending our first ever photo Christmas card. We had a great photo shoot with the whole family last Sunday and look forward to using some of those pictures for our card.

The concept of photo holiday cards immediately makes me think of the Friends episode – The One with the Creepy Holiday Card. In the show, Ross starts to panic when Mona gets an idea to send out a holiday card for the two of them, thinking that their relationship is starting to move too fast.

Perhaps the Christmas card is overdue in our case. We’ve been married now for almost three years and have never done a photo holiday card. Last year we received several of them from family and friends, and they are still decorating our refrigerator. Holiday cards are a great way to share your updated family picture with your friends and family, which is especially important with a growing, changing boy in our family now.

Shutterfly has always been our “go-to” printer for photo books and birth announcements.
• When Rob and I had our first dating anniversary before we got married, I made him a photo book that showed all the things we did during our first year together.
• For our wedding, we used Shutterfly to create our guest book. I put together a book showing each of us separately from birth to when we started dating, added the story of how we met, and included pictures of us while we were together. At the end, I had lines where guests could sign and add comments for us. It is such a great keepsake now, and I will probably pull it out to use again as a guest book for parties on our significant anniversaries (like 20th, 30th, etc).
• When Alan was born, I created our birth announcements using Shutterfly.

With a history like that, we will probably use Shutterfly again for our holiday cards. They have a wonderful selection of designs, and I know their products are great quality products. I particularly like this card because it is a 5x7, which is a normal photo size that we could put in a frame. It also allows for two pictures and has the year in the top corner.

If you didn’t get a birth announcement from us, it is probably because we don’t have your most current address. If you’re interested in getting a Christmas card from us, please send me your address!

Hole in the Ground??

Today I am thankful for pumbing and running water.



One of the great things about living in America is that we have modern plumbing.

I went to China in March of 2009, and was completely shocked at the bathrooms there.

Me at the Great Wall of China. No toilets there!

The hotel was nice and modern, but outside of that, the bathrooms consisted of a hole in the ground. I suppose it wouldn't be too bad if you only had to pee and if you were a guy. But as a girl, I was not about to try to figure out how to squat over a hole and attempt not to pee all over my pants. I held it all day until we were back in the hotel. I'm surprised I didn't get a UTI because of holding it so long.

I've also been on a mission trip with the youth choir where a hot shower was nowhere to be found. That has absolutely no appeal to me. I seriously feel sorry for people who have to live in those conditions on a regular basis.

I will go camping and sleep in a tent or on the ground if there are facilities that I can shower and use the bathroom in. Otherwise, you will not find me at a campsite.

Everyday during the winter, I love standing under the hot water of a good shower, and dread getting out into the cold air.

I am thankful for toilets. I am thankful for hot showers. I am thankful that I live in America.

To see what others are thankful for today, visit:

What Smells?

Today I am thankful for my sense of smell.



It rained last week, and as I was running shortly after the rain, I caught a whiff of some freshly cut wood. With the smell of the rain lingering in the air and the fresh wood smell, my run was so pleasant.

I was once told that how we tasted food was determine mostly (like 80%) by our sense of smell. So if you were blindfolded and given something to eat, but someone put an orange right under your nose for you to smell, whatever it was you were eating would taste like the orange. So between smell and taste, smell is the dominant sense.

My dad has lost his sense of smell completely. My husband's sense of smell is not the best. I think my sense of smell is one of my stronger senses, and most of the time, I'm thankful for it.

During my pregnancy, my sense of smell increased. I could smell things before they were close enough to see.

My favorite smells are probably strange to most people. I like the smell of a musty basement. I like the smell of skin. I like the smell of the dryer. I like the smell of leaves burning in the fall. Then there are the normal smells that almost everyone likes: baking cookies, flowers, etc.

It's so nice to be able to experience life to the fullest through our senses.

To see what others are thankful for today, visit: